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Growing up is not as much fun as it sounds.As you grow, you learn. You realize that half of what you are taught about right and wrong is a blurry mess in the "real world". You discover people with the most awe-inspiring qualities and yet you dislike them. You meet ones that are nothing out of the ordinary and you fall madly in love with them. You defy common sense with every step because hard cold logic doesn't work when you have to make decisions that not just involve your feelings and sentiments but others' too.
You spend a ridiculous amount of time just justifying your actions to yourself. Compliments don't mean much if you aren't well in your own eyes. Criticism is welcomed with open arms because its comforting to receive any sort of reaffirmation; even if its your own self doubt in question.
You learn the harsh lesson of regret. How it feels to let yourself down. You wish you could turn around time, go back on every action, on every word spoken, on every promise made. You wish you could be reborn with a little less innocence and naivete.
You learn how difficult it is to have faith in anything or anybody and hold on to it. You realize that most of the times, your faith is what ends up making you feel foolish and if you are strong enough, you fight the odds and try to cling on to it because you believe your life could be an exception to the laws of nature.
As you grow, you try to shield yourself from reality and look for people who help you forget, just for a little while everyday, that life didn't turn out the way you expected or hoped for it to. Your friends are completely different people tied together by one uniform characteristic; they make you come to terms with how nothing really works out the way you plan it but that you can still find a way to be content.
Don't be in a hurry. Hold on to your innocence and your faith. Hold on to your naivete. Believe in the inherent goodness of people and be shocked when someone disappoints you. Be indignant when things don't turn out the way you expected them too. Cry without abandon.
Don't be in a hurry. There is really no way out once you get here.

The things we forget are the things that truly matter.

The nights spent studying at the last moment, promising ourselves we would start working earlier from the next time. The mornings when we are impressed by our body's love-hate relationship with insomnia or the mornings we zone out and try accomplishing impossible athletic feats in the living room because we can't cram in more information before the exam.

The unplanned conversations about childhood and cartoons watched and how impossibly attractive Jessica looked in Johnny Quest or how the Yogi Yahooeys were most certainly some avatar of pure evil. The conversations you wished stretched on for longer because they made you feel young again. They made you forget, for a few precious minutes, how much you deal with every minute of the day.

The times pride takes a backseat and you ask for company anyway. 

Those people who matter more to you than the act of putting up a front.

The times spent overdosing on newly found culinary obsessions and systematically eliminating them off a cosmic list. 

The days you realize how everything you forgot along the way was everything most important.